Defense attorney: Killer is a "casualty" of Hurricane Katrina disaster

The defense attorney for convicted murderer Alfred Jones urged the jury to spare the 23-year-old from Louisiana's death row in light of his age and the fact that his world turned upside down when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans nearly five years ago.

Alfred Jones

Alfred Jones was among the thousands of families in the city's Lower 9th Ward left with nothing when the levees failed Aug. 29, 2005, his attorney explained.

"How does a kid go from being a good kid in school, star football player, not slinging drugs to where he is today?" defense attorney Rick Teissier said in opening statements at Criminal District Court. "He is a casualty of Katrina. Alfred started living in a different world. He lived in the drug world; the street world."

Up until age 18, Jones was the "all-American kid," said Teissier. "People in my neighborhood actually hung themselves after the storm. Doctors. Lawyers putting guns in their mouth. You were there. Reality was turned on its head and then kicked and smashed into 50 million pieces."

Teissier said, "Everything broke down after Katrina. He had nothing left. Nobody cared about those people. He was taking showers at the gas station for $5 dollars. So who picks him up? Drug dealers. Katrina puts him in that position. He turned to a life of crime."

Prosecutors John Alford and David Pipes called no witnesses during today's penalty hearing and didn't ask a single question of any of the defense's witnesses. Instead, they told the jury that the most damning evidence that Jones deserves death row has already been proffered - at the trial.

Jones freely admitted to the killings, saying that he only fired 14 times into the Impala after the three pulled a gun on him. Ivan Brooks, 16, and his brother Damon Brooks, 17, died in the car from gunshot wounds to the head and back, while Darryl Keiffer, 22, survived ten gunshot wounds to testify this week that Jones ambushed them all after asking for a ride in the Impala.

Jones had precision skill, the autopsy reports and crime scene photographs show. No glass shattered, no stray bullets. Each pull of the trigger sent lead into flesh.

Keiffer admitted to having sold marijuana but everything said at trial indicated that the Brooks brothers were merely along for the ride when Jones began firing.

The jury of seven women and five men now must decide his sentence - life in prison without parole or death by lethal injection. They must be unanimous to deliver the death penalty. If they are unable to reach a verdict, the court is legally bound to sentence Jones to life.

"This isn't John Gotti," Teissier said of his client. "This isn't Jeffrey Dahmer. He has no convictions. He's 23 years old. He will die at Angola."

Six relatives and friends testified on behalf of Jones, many begging the jurors to spare him from the lethal injection needle.

"I don't believe he is a violent person who needs to be crucified," said his aunt Delashaun Tate, who went with Jones when he turned himself into police two days after the killings. "We are God-fearing people who do not believe in violence."

The Jones family described in detail the chaos that followed the levee failures during Katrina. They had fled to Texas before the storm struck; 17 people who had cobbled together $60 for the evacuation.

Their neighborhood left in tatters by the levee breaches at the Industrial Canal, Alfred Jones and his family were among the thousands of people who lost everything to the devastation.

For a year after, they slept in cars, friends' FEMA trailers and shelters. Alfred kept driving back to New Orleans, getting a construction job until it dried up, his relatives said.

Jones has three children, ages 5, 4 and 3.

The 3-year-old, a wide-eyed girl with brightly colored bows in her hair and pink sandals, has attended the trial with her mother, Ebony Jenkins, 22.

Jenkins told the jury that Jones has been in jail since their daughter's birth, but that he is a loving father and deserves life in prison rather than death row.

"Everybody loves him," Jenkins said. "At least the kids still get a chance to see their father."

The jury doesn't know that Jenkins spend a night in jail this week after a courtroom outburst directed at the state's witness, Keiffer.

Judge Lynda Van Davis asked her why she stood up and yelled at Keiffer, who had just stepped off the witness stand. Jenkins said it was because Keiffer called Jones a vile name and that he "had to be stopped."

Davis gave her 24 hours in jail for contempt of court.

The jury did hear that while Jones has no prior convictions, he has seven prior arrests dating back to 2004. They include simple batteries, second degree battery, disturbing the peace and drug traffic loitering.

After the storm, Jones was booked with possession of cocaine.

Teissier shrugged the arrests off as not indicative of any pattern. It was the friends Jones made post-Katrina, including Louis Daniels who was recently killed himself after being suspected of murder.

The jury heard plenty about Daniels during the trial, as Teissier argued that it was Daniels who wanted Jones shot dead over a drug dealing theft of $7,000 from Keiffer's home.

"Daniels was a bad guy and a big time drug dealer," said Teissier, who has called Daniels the "John Gotti of New Orleans."